Caribou in trouble, whales resurgent: A census of B.C. species

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Leslie Young, Global News

The past few decades have been good to British Columbia’s humpback and sperm whales. But the province’s boreal caribou and a tiny, vital smelt species are not doing so well.

The data, released in February 2013 on the province’s Data BC website, ranks vertebrates by their conservation status. Species are assessed on three major factors, according to Eric Lofroth, manager of the B.C. Conservation Data Centre: their population numbers, threats to the organism, and trends in the organism’s population and habitat.

But declining population numbers don’t necessarily mean an animal’s protected: A high-risk ranking might place an animal on the lists of species that require special consideration – meaning flagging them for further investigation, but wouldn’t confer “endangered” status.

Read the full story here.

Childbirth economics: What older moms and teenage pregnancy say about opportunity in Ontario

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Patrick Cain and Carmen Chai, Global News : Wednesday, February 20, 2013 1:57 PM

TORONTO — Jodi Aslin is 41 years old and seven months pregnant.

In Ontario, she’s no longer an anomaly.

Ms. Aslin was in no rush to start a family: She spent her 20s studying social work and teaching English in Korea, and met her husband at 34. A year later, they decided they wanted children.

It took almost five years and more than $20,000 in fertility treatments, but her daughter Jamie is now two years old. Ms. Aslin’s second child is due in April.

“We recognize that we’re in the older crowd, but we’re happy. I feel great.”

Full story and interactive here.

For Ontario students, teachers college losing its lustre

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Patrick Cain and Anna Mehler Paperny, Global News : Wednesday, February 13, 2013 11:09 AM
The number of applicants to Ontario teacher’s colleges has dropped in half since 2007, hitting its lowest point in sixteen years.

Data was published in January by the Ontario Universities’ Application Centre, which serves as a clearinghouse for university applications, indicate that 8,199 people applied to Ontario teacher’s colleges this past January, compared to 16,042 in January 2007.

Full story and interactive here.

Ottawa won’t cover costs of new mentally ill offender law

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Anna Mehler Paperny, Global News : Tuesday, February 12, 2013 1:05 PM

The federal government has no plans to help provinces with costs associated with its new rules on how to deal with mentally ill offenders.

Last week, Prime Minister Stephen Harper unveiled legislation that would crack down on people found not criminally responsible due to mental disorders. It would establish a “high risk” classification for those who have committed serious crimes and shift emphasis to victim impact when determining how long someone should stay in custody.

If courts and review boards take this legislation to heart it could mean more offenders in provincial forensic hospitals for a longer period of time.

Ottawa won’t pay for them.

Full story here.

Crackdown on mentally ill offenders could overwhelm strained system, critics charge

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Anna Mehler Paperny, Global News : Tuesday, February 12, 2013 1:00 PM

Ottawa’s plan to crack down on mentally ill offenders could accomplish the opposite of its intent, critics say – pushing more people with mental illness into a prison system unable to treat them, and putting seriously ill patients in makeshift, less secure accommodation in overflowing forensic hospital wings.

Full story here.

Number of people affected by HRSDC’s student loan data breach could be larger than Ottawa’s claims

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Anna Mehler Paperny, Global News : Monday, February 11, 2013 7:01 PM

The cohort of people whose personal information the federal government lost is larger than Ottawa has said.

Human Resources and Skills Development Canada announced last month it lost a flash drive from an office in Gatineau, Que., containing the personal information of more than half a million student loan recipients. The department originally said the data breach only affected people who took out loans between 2000 and 2006. But as a team of lawyers moves forward on a $600-million class action suit, some of those involved say they applied for loans well outside that window.

Full story here.

New Canadians love Quebec; they just can’t work there: Why immigrants are leaving La Belle Province

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Fahimeh Sinai and Peyman Rajabian as they prepare to leave their Montreal apartment. Christinne Muschi/Globe and Mail

Fahimeh Sinai and Peyman Rajabian as they prepare to leave their Montreal apartment. Christinne Muschi/Globe and Mail

ANNA MEHLER PAPERNY – Globe and Mail, Dec. 21, 2012

In the three years since Fahimeh Sinai and Peyman Rajabian left Iran for a new life in Montreal, they have accomplished a lot – earning graduate degrees, touring the Gaspé and obtaining provincially funded therapy for their toddler son. They applied for citizenship as soon as they were eligible.

But they applied from Calgary.

At the end of September, the couple crammed into their sedan with son and belongings to make the long drive west. They had neither jobs nor a place to live. But they were sure it was the right decision.

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Omar Khadr: Confessed jihadist, Hunger Games fan

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Janet Hamlin

ANNA MEHLER PAPERNY

October 2, 2012 – Globe and Mail

Curricula for convicted terrorists aren’t the stuff of everyday academia.

So when Omar Khadr’s U.S. legal team asked Arlette Zinck, an English professor at King’s University College in Edmonton, to design and deliver a lesson plan for the Guantanamo Bay detainee, she and her colleagues had their work cut out for them.

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